Newsletter

Tomi Lahren, conservative commentator, has show put on hold after she voiced ‘pro-choice’ stance

In this file photo, Tomi Lahren seen at Politicon 2016 at The Pasadena Convention Center on Saturday, June 25, 2016, in Pasadena, CA. Lahren, a conservative commentator for the Irving-based, right-wing media firm The Blaze, has been temporarily suspended days after announcing on “The View” that she favors abortion rights. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Invision/AP)

DALLAS — Tomi Lahren, a conservative commentator for the Irving-based, right-wing media firm The Blaze, has been temporarily suspended days after announcing on “The View” that she favors abortion rights.

“Tomi’s show will not be in production this week,” The Blaze managing editor Leon Wolf said in an email.

Wolf did not elaborate.

Lahren said in an email that she is “not allowed to comment at all.”

Her boss, Blaze founder Glenn Beck, sparred with her on Twitter on Sunday night, suggesting her claim of being a libertarian clashed with her support of President Donald Trump’s executive orders and health care proposal. “#intellectualhonesty,” he tweeted.

Beck also retweeted a video that showed her flip-flopping on the issue.

Her abortion rights comments angered her co-workers, who tweeted criticisms of her. Lahren’s contract with The Blaze is up this fall, and The Daily Caller reported she may be leaving her job before then, if she can find an employer “willing to buy out her last six months.”

“I speak my truth,” Lahren tweeted. “If you don’t like it, tough. I will always be honest and stand in my truth.”

A reporter at The Blaze, Kate Scanlon, responded on Twitter saying, “There is no ‘my truth.’ There is only the truth.”

Lahren’s latest controversy started with her appearance Friday on the “The View’s” “Political View” segment. Co-host Sunny Hostin said to Lahren, “You call yourself a conservative Republican and a constitutional conservative, but you also consider yourself pro-choice … .”

That stunned another host, Paula Faris, who chimed in to ask, “Are you? … You’re pro-choice?”

“I am pro-choice, and here’s why,” Lahren said. “I am … someone that loves the Constitution, I am someone that’s for limited government, so I can’t sit here and be a hypocrite and say I’m for limited government but I think that the government should decide what women do with their bodies.

“I can sit here and say that as a Republican, and I can say, you know what, I’m for limited government so stay out of my guns and you can stay out of my body as well,” she said.

Lahren said she is often attacked by conservative women because of her stance.

“It’s equal hate from all sides for me,” she said, laughing.

After the show aired, Lahren was flooded on social media with critical posts, though there were many supportive comments as well.

Many said she appeared to flip-flop on the issue, with some citing a December clip from the “Final Thoughts” portion of her show on The Blaze. In the clip, she attacks actress Lena Dunham, who has said that she wished she had an abortion. Lahren said Dunham hurts her own narrative.

“Think about it: The pro-choicers are supposed to be about rare and safe abortions. That’s how they avoid sounding like straight-up baby killers,” Lahren said. “Then we have Lena freakin’ Dunham out there wishing she could have murdered a fetus.”

After someone commented that she had previously called the procedure “murder,” Lahren said that she was not “glorifying abortion.”

“I don’t personally advocate for it. I just don’t think it’s the government’s place to dictate,” she said.